School Wellness Trends You Can’t Ignore

Stress is up, wellness is down, and school leaders need to act. Join Debra Wilson, the President of SAIS, to explore the latest research in school wellness and what you can do right now to support your community.

Tests, prom, and graduation are hallmarks of the spring semester—but are often accompanied by stress, social conflicts, and rising levels of anxiety and depression. Because of these factors, March and April often see the most teen suicide attempts, according to SAIS research.

The Key to Developing Student Engagement in Your Advisory Program

How do you build a strong program where students are engaged and excited about the advisory process?

Advisory programs are intended to build community relationships and serve as first-line guidance by ensuring that each student on your campus is well-known by an adult. However, ISM’s research shows that advisory programs are, at best, “mediocre” in achieving the aims of their program.

Getting Buy-In and Engagement for Advisory Programs

Building an effective advisory program is an important aspect of fulfilling your school’s mission and delivering on your Purpose and Outcome Statements. However, teachers often describe advisory as an “add-on” duty, placing it akin to duties like “carpool” and “lunch supervision.” So, while from a “mission” perspective, advisory programs serve a critical role, there are factors that make it feel to faculty as if it is of secondary importance.

Foster Inclusivity: Approaches for White Racial Identity Development

Discover how to enhance every student's sense of belonging and strengthen your school culture in the process.

Everyone deserves to feel like they belong at their school. As more schools focus on anti-racism, the question about how that impacts white students and faculty arises.

How do you increase the sense of belonging for Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) students and faculty, address the ills of systemic racism and white privilege, while also supporting positive racial identity development for white students and faculty?

Assessing the Quality and Impact of an Employee Growth Goal

ISM’s growth and evaluation framework for School Heads, administrators, and nonteaching staff clarifies that growth itself is not to be evaluated, so employees are free to try new things and take risks without fear of failure. However, not all growth goals are created equal. ISM designed the following rubric to help you and your employees assess and strengthen your own growth goals, and to help your trained growth plan coaches have productive, objective conversations with the employees they’re coaching.

Hiring? Here’s Why Applications Yield More Qualified, Mission-Driven Employees

Discover how applications are the secret weapon to choosing the best candidate for your school and students.

The “Great Resignation” is here—and you will probably find your school trying to fill one or more positions this spring.

It’s easy to post a job opening on your school website with a call for resumes, but not so fast.

There’s a better way to hire—it starts with creating an application for a new job posting.